Burning Blood
by PencilDamage
Summary: Rain makes a new start at Sky High. befriending Layla and her group, she unwittingly falls into the web of love, lies, vendettas and gossip in school. a little bit of WarrenOC. my first fanfic
1. First Week

**Chapter 1**

I checked my reflection in the mirror one last time as I got ready to leave. My dark blond curls framed my round-ish face, and my dark blue eyes seemed wider than usual, possibly due to the fact that I had put on mascara today. I was wearing fairly plain clothing, just jeans and a blue t-shirt with the words 'bite me', and a plain black zip-up. I grabbed my grey and green school bag off the floor, which jingled as I slung it across my back due to the charms hanging off of it, and stepped out of the door just as the school bus pulled up.

Once on the bus, I sat in the seat I had been sitting in since I started Sky High last week, across the aisle from Layla and her boyfriend Will.

"So Rain, did you do your homework?" Layla asked me. We were in a few of the same classes together since the school board decided that lessons not involving the use of super powers should be taught in mixed ability classes.

"We had homework?" I asked, a little worried. I had set myself a goal for not getting detention in the first week, which involved handing in homework.

"You know, the one for hero lit," she said grinning.

"She's just messing with you," Magenta said, turning round from the seat in front of Layla, where she sat with her on/off boyfriend, Zach.

"I knew that," I said in mock defence, and Layla laughed.

"Then why the shocked look on your face?" she asked

"I'm practising my acting skills," I said matter-of-factly.

"Of course." Magenta said.

Just then I was pulled back into my seat by the straps as the bus took off. Although it wasn't my first ever time on the school bus, I still let out an involuntary gasp as the bus swerved to the left, but it was drowned out by the grinding of metal as the wings and turbo engine slid into place.

Once in school, I followed Layla through the maze of corridors until I found my locker, which was only a few metres away from hers, then followed her to my first lesson of the day, Hero Literature.

Later on in the day, I managed to make my way to the cafeteria alone, without getting lost. But when I looked towards the table where they usually sat, none of them were there… except Warren.

I walked slowly to the table, wondering whether it was a good idea to sit down or not. Although I'd sat at this table with him and the others for four days now, I still hadn't spoken to him. Honestly? I was little scared of him.

I'd been told about Warren, the hard-core bad-ass who had nearly fried Will in a fight that had almost destroyed the cafeteria. Apparently he had been thrown right through a steel-reinforced wall and into a concrete pillar, and had stood up again like nothing happened. Not exactly a guy I wanted to piss off.

_Screw it_, I thought, and took a seat almost directly opposite him, where I had sat since Monday- my first day at sky high.

"Hi," I said brightly as I shook my bag off of my shoulders. He raised his eyes to look at me, with a eyes so intense I had to look away. Pulling my lunch out of my bag, I took my chocolate muffin out of its plastic wrapping, pretending not to notice he was looking, though I could feel his gaze on me. For some reason, it really pissed me off. Not that he was looking, but… I don't know what it was. But it gave me the guts to say to him

"Is there any need for you to stare at me like that?"

"No."

"So could you stop please?"

"And what if I don't?" he said, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"You don't want to know." I said.

I don't what made me say it. Picking a fight with Warren really wasn't what I'd had planned, it just came out. Normally I would never have had the guts to say something like that, but maybe I was the fact that I was at a new school, nobody here knew who I was. In my old school, I'd played plenty of roles- the freak, then the smart girl, then the popular girl, then the gossip girl… now I could play the bad girl. Maybe it would turn out to be what I was looking for.

"You've got guts," he smirked, obviously not taking me seriously. I was saved from having to come up with a witty retort by Layla and the others, who came to join us at our table. There was a clatter of trays as they all took their seats, immediately launching into conversation with one-another.

"So, you spoke to Warren?" Layla asked in a low voice so no-one else would hear. "That was brave. Not a lot of people in this school would dare speak to him."

I shrugged. "Well, I kind of rested on the belief that he would refrain from frying me seeing as you guys are friends…"

Layla laughed. "I'm not sure if that's totally true…"

"Well, I survived didn't I?" I grinned. Layla's laughter quickly died as she caught sight of something behind me.

"Uh-oh, here come Speed and Lash," she said.

Turning round, I saw two guys walking purposefully towards our table, the younger kids more than happy to get the hell out of their way. They stopped right in front of me, with smirks plastered across their faces. I assumed that these were the same Lash and Speed who had been involved in the Royal Pain incident last year.

"New girl, right?" the taller one said to me

"What do you think Lash, worth shutting in a locker?" he shorter one asked.

"Nah, too pretty," Lash said.

"Leave her alone," Layla said from behind me

"Ooooh," Speed said. "Gonna get your boyfriend on us?"

I looked at Will. He looked slightly annoyed, but not intimidated in the least. I figured he could probably take them out quite easily.

Suddenly, I felt something on my lower, back, moving towards my bum. Did he just try to _grope me_? Spinning round, I saw Lash's arm retracting to its normal length.

"Don't do that again." I said, standing up, my hands curling into fists. I could feel heat spreading through my hand, building up at my fingertips. My palms began to sting.

"Why? What are you going to do?" Lash smirked.

Smoke was now rising form my hands. A liquid seeped out of my skin, red and orange with bits of black. It looked like molten lava. Noticing the smoke, Lash looked down at my glowing hand. "Another pyro?" he said, glancing past me to Warren.

"No," I smiled. "different." I raised my hand, the liquid on it rising from my skin, forming a ball that hovered above my palm. "Would you like to find out what it does?"

Lash and Speed recoiled slightly.

"We have better things to be doing right now," Lash said, and Speed nodded. They walked past me, keeping their distance, and continued to the other side of the cafeteria.

As I turned to sit down, I noticed that our little exchange had attracted quite and audience, many of the other students in the cafeteria returning to their lunch when I caught them looking. One guy flashed me a smile. He had light brown hair and a dimple in his right cheek. He was kind of cute.

When I returned to my seat, Layla hi-fived me. "Nice going Rain," she said.

"Cool power," Zach told me. "What is it?"

"Um…" I was reluctant to tell them, because people usually find the idea disturbing.

I looked around the table, and everyone was looking at me expectantly, curiosity on their faces. Even Warren's eyes were on me, with that intense gaze of his, the one that made me want to avert my eyes and keep staring at the same time…

"It's burning blood," I mumbled, shoving the muffin in my mouth.

"Burning blood?" Magenta repeated loudly.

"Way cool," Zach leaned back in his seat. Ethan nodded.

I was pleasantly surprised. No-one had every told me that particular power was cool. My wings and ability to fly, yes. My burning blood? No.

"So, you have two powers. That means you're at least 2nd generation hero, right?" Will said to me.

"5th generation actually," I told him.

"Really? Who are you're parents?" Ethan asked eagerly.

"You wouldn't have heard of them… they relinquished their powers. So did my grandparents." I told him

"How come?" Magenta wanted to know.

I squirmed in my seat. "Just… because." I took another bite of muffin. "I'm the first one in my family to keep their powers since…" I paused, not willing to reveal my heritage. "Since my great great grandma," I finished.

"Was she evil or something?" Magenta asked.

"Magenta!" Layla frowned at her?

"What? It can't be that bad!"

"Trust me," I sighed. "It is."


	2. Wrong Move

authors note:_ thanks so much everyone who gave reviews, your comments mean alot to me! i have the next few chapters planned, which i will write and post if people want to read more. enjoy!)_

**Chapter 2: Causing Drama**

"Rain? Rain!" My dad barged through my closed doors, strode across the room and threw the curtains open, and then pulled the covers off of me.

"Time to get up Rain, it's Monday."

I hissed as the sunlight streamed through my window, diving under the pillow to cover my unprepared eyes.

"Get up. You'll be late for school." He said pulling the pillow away from me, as my brother poked his head round the door.

"School? You mean she hasn't been kicked out yet?" he said, and I threw a pillow at his head. He tried to dodge but he was too slow and my aim is pretty good.

Rolling off the bed, I stretched my arms above my head as I landed on the floor with a thud. Dragging myself to a standing position, I walked across the room and opened my wardrobe door. A grabbed my black combats and the nearest top, which turned out to be a vintage style dark green one with a black motorbike on it. One of my favourites.

I got changed slowly, not awake enough to actually care about the time, and went downstairs for breakfast. I had barely finished when the school bus arrived, so I had no time to do anything except brush my hair before grabbing my bag and heading out the door.

At school, I managed to find my way to my first lesson, which was mad sciences-chemistry, by following Will. Layla wasn't in my class, so I paired up with him instead when we had to build stun grenades.

After lesson, I walked in a random direction, not having the slightest clue where to go for my next lesson. My time-table said I had to go to room A7, but I had no idea where it was. Randomly wondering up the corridor, I saw Warren and considered asking him for directions, but hesitated. I wasn't exactly on friendly terms with him, or even speaking terms. He might just turn around and leave. Or throw a fireball at me. Or lead me to the opposite side of the school to where my class was on purpose and leave me there.

After a few seconds I decided _what the hell_, and went after him.

"Um… Warren?" I said hesitantly, tapping him on the back. He turned.

"I err… do you where room A7 is? I don't know how to get to my next class and I'm kind of late…"

He was silent for a few seconds, and I hoped I hadn't pissed him off or anything.

"Yeah… sure," he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll take you."

Surprised at these words, I followed him in silence as we walked through the almost empty corridors.

A few minutes later, we arrived in a corridor which looked exactly like the four other ones we'd walked through.

"Um… is your class somewhere nearby?" I asked him in an attempt to make conversation. He shook his head.

"Other side of the school."

"Won't you be late?"

He raised his eyebrow at me. "You think I plan to go?"

He stopped outside one of the doors (which was identical to all the others down the hallway) and I peered through the window. I could see Layla sitting in the third row, and a few other girls I vaguely recognised from other lessons. There were no guys in the classroom.

"Thanks," I said turning to Warren, but he was already walking away. I looked on as his black leather jacket disappeared around the corner, then proceeded to open the door.

"Sorry I'm late," I muttered to the teacher. "I got lost."

The teacher, a tall thin blond woman, nodded. "Rain Meiham, right?" she said, checking her register. I nodded and went to sit down in an empty seat beside Layla. I noticed a few people giving me curious looks. I assumed it was because I had walked into lesson late. Or maybe it was because they didn't recognize me, I was new after all.

"You're early," Layla said to me as I pulled my pencil case out of my bag. I turned to look at the board. In large capital letters it said 'PSHE' then underneath in smaller letters, it said 'Personal, Social, and Health Education.' Then, even smaller, were the words 'including sex ed'

I groaned.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Layla told me nodding.

About 15 minutes later when the teacher had set us an assignment, Layla and I were talking.

"How come Warren was with you when you came?" she asked curiously. "The guys have PSHE this lesson too, and that's on the other side of the school."

I shrugged. "I asked where my class was so he showed me."

"He was late to lesson just for you?" Layla asked. "Oh my god, that came out wrong. No offence to you or anything, I just meant-"

"Yeah, I know what you meant," I told her suppressing a laugh. "But let me just say, first of all, Warren seems like the kind of guy who isn't too bothered about being late to class, and second, he wasn't planning to go anyway. He was bunking off."

"Bunking off?" Layla was confused.

"Oh sorry," I said realising my mistake. "East London slang. I meant he was skipping class."

"Oh…" Layla nodded, but it seemed as if she wanted to say more.

"What?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

Layla tilted her head at me. "It's just… strange," Layla said.

"Err… what is?" I was confused.

"Just... the way Warren…" she paused, trying to come up with the words to explain what she meant. "Well, I think you are the first person ever to randomly come and sit with him at lunch."

It didn't get what was strange about that. "It wasn't random. I'd sat there before-"

"Do you think Zach or Ethan, or even Magenta would sit there if me and Will weren't there?" Layla challenged.

"Well, what about you? You and Will started sitting with him at lunch," I told her.

"Will only did because I did. And I only did because I…" she paused, then told me about how she had met him at a Chinese restaurant, the Paper Lantern, and he had told her to ask Will to the dance. How Will had told her that he was going with Gwen Grayson, so she had blurted out that she was going with Warren. So then, at lunch, she had asked Warren to go with her, to make Will jealous. Warren had agreed, so she had sat with Warren while Will sat at the 'popular' table, until the home-coming dance showdown. After that, Will had joined the others at Warren's table.

I had to laugh. "You and Warren? And Will was jealous? Wish I had been there to see that," I told her.

She smiled. "Yeah…"

Two lessons later, I was fairly sure I was going in the right direction for my locker, when I heard Layla shrieking. Rushing round the corner, I was greeted by the site of Layla up against her locker, a tangle of thorny weeds forming a shield between her and Lash, who was having difficulty extracting his hand from the plants.

"Don't ever try that again Lash!" Layla was saying

"I was only playing around," he said, finally getting free of the weeds, which were now retracting anyway. Seeing me, his face split into an evil grin.

"Well well well, another playmate," Lash said, advancing towards me. I felt my hand heat behind my back up as a ball of burning blood formed in my palm. As Lash's arm extended towards me, I threw the ball at him. It hit him in the shoulder, his arm retracting as he cried out, putting out the flames on his shirt.

"Miss Meiham, did I just see you attack another student?" came a voice from behind me.

"_Shit_," I muttered under my breath as I turned to face principle Powers, who was striding towards me.

"It wasn't her fault," Layla cut in, stepping forwards. "It was Lash, he was-"

"I don't doubt that Lash did something," Powers began, talking to Layla, before turning to me "But that does not change the fact that you attacked a student using your power. Detention, both of you." She said, before turning on her heel and returning to her office.

Lash turned to me. "Well, it'll be a great chance to get to know each-other a little bit more," he said, winking suggestively before disappearing down the hall and round a corner.

"I'm sorry," Layla said to me after Lash had left. "It's my fault; I should have explained to Powers that he had been trying to grope me…"

"You would have said that to a teacher?" I asked her, and she flushed slightly.

"Well, no... I mean I…"

"It's fine," I told her. "My parents would have been in shock if I'd managed two weeks without detention."

"But I feel bad," Layla said, a pained expression on her face. It was so sweet the way she cared so much, even though I'd only known her a little over a week.

"Seriously, It's fine." I assured her, as we began walking towards our last lesson of the day.

After school, I made my way to principle powers office. On the way, the cute guy who had smiled at me yesterday said hi.

"Rain, right?"

I nodded.

"Hey, I'm Gunn." He stuck his hand out and I shook it.

"Where're you off to now?" he asked.

"Detention," I grimaced

"Aw, how come?"

"I attacked Lash."

Gunn laughed. "He probably deserved it; he can be a real dick-head sometimes."

"And a perv," I said, rolling my eyes. Gunn laughed.

"Well, see you around," he said as he turned to leave.

"Bye," I said, and he flashed me a smile. I felt a weird sensation in my stomach - Gunn's smile had given my butterflies.

I was smiling as Principle Powers directed me to the detention room. "You can't use your powers in there," she told me as she opened the door. "I'll be back for you when your time is up."

I entered, my eyes hurting from the glaring whiteness of the room as I looked around. To my surprise, not only was Lash there, but so was Will.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

Will sent Lash a dirty look. "Same as you."

"Well, at least he'll never try to grope Layla again," I said, kind of forgetting that Will, being her boyfriend and all, might not want to hear it in those words- it made him a little angry.

"When we get out of here, you are so dead," Will told Lash. I smirked.


	3. Vendetta

_(This chapter is mostly setting the scene for the next chapter, but still kind of important…feel free to put criticism in your reviews, or death threats telling me to update faster .all comments are appreciated)_

**Chapter 3: Vendetta**

Two days later, I spoke to Gunn again, this time in Citizen Support class, which was something to do with dealing with citizens when you're a hero, etc etc. Not that I was paying attention… except when the teacher called the register, I noticed that he called Warren's name, which surprised me because I'd never seen Warren in CS… he probably skipped it.

"The Grudge was better," Gunn was saying as my mind returned to the conversation; we were discussing films.

"No way," I said. "The Ring totally beats the Grudge!"

"Come on, if you were stuck in a room with two doors, behind one was Samara, the Grudge behind the other one, where would you run to?" he asked.

"Samara…"

"Exactly."

Just then, the bell sounded, so I grabbed my bag and shoved my pencil case into it, then headed out the door to my next lesson, saying bye to Gunn as I did.

Next I had mad sciences - biology, with Layla, and after lesson we walked toward the cafeteria together. As we drew closer to it, I spotted Will and Warren a little way ahead. Pulling Layla through the crowd, I tried to catch up with them. They were going through the double doors when Warren paused. I craned my neck to see why, and noticed that the students around us had gone considerably quiet. Leaving the cafeteria was a small group of girls, the tallest of which, a pretty girl with pale blond hair, was also standing in the doorway, glaring at Warren, who glared back. Unable to hold his gaze for long, she looked away, and Will grabbed Warrens arm.

"Come on," he said quietly, and Warren allowed Will to lead him away from the door into the cafeteria.

"Whoa, what was that about?" I asked Layla as we approached the doors.

"That was Brittany Frieze," Layla said. "Warrens ex."

"What happened with them?" I asked as we sat down at the table.

"Well, Brittany cheated on Warren. She hooked up with some guy at a party, and they were kissing and groping and stuff, and Warren saw."

"Ouch."

"I know. But Warren pretended he didn't know, and just when she was starting to really fall for him, he dumped her."

"Harsh."

"Do you blame him though?" Layla asked me. I shook my head, glancing at Warren. He was acting completely normal, but there was a certain forcedness to his actions, which told me that underneath his unaffected exterior, he was very pissed off.

"So, are you going to tell us about your evil great grandma or whatever?" Magenta asked as she sat down.

"Magenta!" Layla sent her a warning look.

"What? It's not like she's the only one, I mean look at Warren,"

"Warren?" I glanced towards him. Hi slowly raised his head and looked at me.

"Yeah. My dad is baron Battle."

"Oh, I'm…sorry," I didn't know what to say.

"Don't be," he told me, then turned to glare at Magenta, who recoiled slightly.

"Well… my great great grandma was Reign of Mayhem," I said.

"Whoa, no way," Zach had an almost disbelieving expression on his face.

"_The_ original super villainess?" Ethan asked, and I nodded.

"Way cool," Zach said, leaning back in his seat.

Once again I was surprised with the readiness that my new friends accepted this piece of information. No weird looks what so ever.

Warren had gone back to concentrating on his food, his fork stabbing at it with a little more force than necessary.

I felt bad for him, so at the end of lunch, when we stood to go to lesson, I put my hand on his arm. "are you ok?" I asked, but he shrugged me off. I was really hurt, more so than I should have been. I mean yeah, I should have felt kind of hurt because I was trying to be nice, but this was… I don't know. It was like I really couldn't stand the thought of Warren being angry at me…

It only hit me a few hours later, when I was home alone. _Oh my god, I have a crush on Warren Peace_! But wait; didn't I have a crush on Gunn? Isn't that where the weird butterflies feeling came from when he smiled at me? Ok, I was confused now. I decided to go for a walk as I sorted my thoughts out; I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic at home.

My parents and my brother weren't going to be home until around 9pm and had left me a note telling me to make my own dinner, so I decided I would eat out. It was around 6pm when I left the house, just starting to get dark.

Wondering around town, I considered calling Layla and Magenta to see if they wanted to meet up, but I decided against it; I wasn't sure if we were at the stage of randomly calling each other when we were bored… I had their numbers - Layla had given me hers on my first day at sky high, telling me if I ever needed help or anything, to feel free to call her, which I thought was a really sweet gesture – but I'd only ever used it to text them a few times, mainly over the weekend. I hadn't met them outside of school yet.

Instead, I decided to get something to eat because I was starting to get hungry. There was a Chinese restaurant a little further down the street, called 'The Paper Lantern', so I decided to go there.

An hour later, I was finishing off my food at the restaurant, while reading a random book I had bought over the weekend, but not had a chance to read. When the waiter came over to take my plate, I almost choked on the water I was sipping when I saw it was Warren.

"Hi," he said once I had gotten over my coughing fit, leaving me incredibly embarrassed.

"Err, hi, I didn't know you worked here," I said to him, wondering if he was still angry at me.

"Yeah…" he was silent for a second and stood as if he was deciding whether or not to say something… "I'm... sorry about earlier," he said finally. "I was just…"

"What was it about? The thing between you and Br… that blond girl." I said, stopping myself from saying the name. I didn't want Warren to know what Layla had told me.

"What, you mean Brittany?" he said, raising his eyebrow "like you don't know."

For a second I thought maybe he was a mind reader, before he said "I heard Layla telling you."

"How she broke your heart, so you broke hers…"

I stood up and followed him to the counter to pay for my meal.

"Broke my heart?" Warren asked. "Please, don't make this into some soppy love story rain,"

"You didn't love her?"

"No."

"But she loved you,"

"No… If she loved me, she wouldn't have done that." He said flatly, handing me my change. "Do you need a ride home? My shift finishes now, so I could take you…"

"It's ok, you don't have to…"

"Seriously, its fine," he insisted, so I shrugged and agreed, getting those same butterflies in my stomach I had when Gunn smiled at me.

A few minutes later, he held the door open for me as we stepped out into the cold night air.


	4. Crash

_I checked my stats, and a few people have read my story, but I don't have a lot of reviews:( I have the next chapter written, but if no-one reviews, I just won't update it. I know it's not great (it's my first fanfic after all) but reviews are HUGELY appreciated, really! _

**Chapter 4: Crash**

We walked and talked for what seemed to me a few minutes, which turned out to be almost 45 minutes when I checked my watch. It was weird, but I felt comfortable talking to him. Still a little intimidated, but comfortable. And also… there was always that weird little feeling of butterflies… I pushed the idea of having a crush on Warren to the back of my mind, but it would randomly surface again for silly little reasons, like when Warren and I held eye contact… then the butterflies in my stomach were more like rabid bats.

"Oops, I was supposed to be taking you home, wasn't I?" Warren said, looking around.

"Yeah… I guess we got a little distracted," I smiled.

"Well, we're near where Layla and Will live, which as about 10, 15 minutes from where you live," he told me. "It'll be quicker if we fly though…"

_Fly? Warren can't fly,_ I thought as I took my jacket off. There was a familiar itching-burning sensation in my shoulder blades, and I could feel my skin stretching as my wings pushed through it. The weird thing about my wings is that they grow. Each time they appear, they aren't actually unfolding or whatever, I'm growing them from scratch, which is why they go through my clothes- they actually grow through the fibres of my top, providing it's a natural material like cotton. It's disgusting I know, but it's convenient because unlike most winged people, I don't have to have special slits in the back of my top to allow them to unfold.

I turned to Warren, about to ask him how exactly he intended to fly, and saw him standing, burning up to his knees. As the flames around his legs grew stronger, he began to rise off the ground. Obviously seeing the look of surprise on my face, he flashed me a grin, which I knew was an almost unheard of occurrence. My stomach somersaulted as I flapped my huge leathery wings, rising off of the ground with him.

"It's just like Medulla's jet pack," he told me when I was closer. "Without the ridiculous flashing lights that he thinks look really cool."

I laughed, and followed him as he turned and sped off in the direction of my house.

We raced each other, speeding down the street as close to the ground as we could go without scraping against it (very painful, trust me, I've done it before), or higher up, dodging lamp posts and trees, running and jumping from roof to roof. There were laws against going any higher up than one storey above the roof of whatever building you happened to be above, because there were dangers of aeroplanes, helicopters, getting in the way of superheroes on their way to a crime scene, or being attacked by geese. (No really, I'm not kidding around)

About 5 minutes later, my driveway came into view. I pointed to it, and Warren nodded, and prepared to land. His landing was quite graceful, considering the speed we were going at. He stumbled forward a few steps when he hit the ground, before stopping and turning in time to see me totally fuck up my own landing. As the ground approached, I bent my legs like parachuters do, folding my wings. But my momentum carried my forward, so I ended up doing a sort of somersault, scraping my right arm along the ground as a skidded to a stop at Warren's feet.

"Shit!" I hissed as Warren bent down to help me. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to a standing position. He was actually quite strong for some-one who doesn't have super strength, which meant that as I was pulled to my feet, I was also pulled forward, so I was almost pressing against Warren, his eyes catching mine and holding them there. It was as if my stomach had dropped away, leaving an empty space where the rest of my internal organs had decided to play a violent game of football with my spleen. There seemed to be an electric current going through my arm from his fingertips, making my heart beat so fast I was vaguely surprised that I wasn't yet suffering from a stroke. His lips, only inches away from mine, breathed warm air onto my cold ones, my body automatically moving towards the source of warmth…

"You're bleeding…" he said, breaking the spell. "Your arm,"

I looked down at the bloody mess of blood, ripped skin and torn flesh, a souvenir from my spectacular crash. It looked really disgusting; the main part of the wound on my upper arm, with various other scratches and grazes all the way down to my hand. As soon as he mentioned it, the pain kicked in. I swore as slight breeze fluttered against my arm, making it sting so that tears formed behind my eyes.

"I need to go clean up," I told Warren, turning away.

Pulling my keys out, I strode towards the front door, trying to act as unaffected as I could, as I fumbled to fit the key in the lock with my left hand.

"Piece of shit," I hissed under my breath.

Suddenly, Warren was there, taking the keys from my hand, unlocking the door, and leading me inside. I walked into the kitchen, opening the cupboard where the first aid kit and medical supplies were, only to be ushered into a seat by the kitchen table, as he opened the medical kit and got some bandages out.

"Warren… if my parents see you here I'm going to be in deep shit," I told him.

"So how are you going to explain how you patched up your arm one-handed?" he asked.

"They're not going to know," I said. "I'm not exactly going to tell them, am I?"

"Some of those cuts are pretty deep," he said, taking the lid off of a bottle of purified water. Or maybe it was disinfectant water. "We need to disinfect them… hang on, this is going to hurt,"

He poured the water over my arm and I cried out in pain as it seeped into the deeper gashes.

"I'm sorry Rain," he said to me "I don't want to hurt you but it's got to be done." Once again he poured the water on my arm, and a muffled cry escaped my lips as I grabbed his shoulder with my left hand, blinking back the tears that were threatening to fall, my arm feeling like it was on fire.

Minutes later, Warren had finished tightening the bandages on my arm. They went all the way down to my hand, although I'd asked him not to. How was I going to explain the bandages to my parents? They had forbidden me from flying until I had learnt what my other powers were. (I was supposed to have quite a few since I was 5th generation super hero.) Also, Warren was probably the last person they wanted me associating with. My parents were strong believers in the fact that kids turn out like their parents, which is why they had relinquished their powers. My moms great grandma had had been the worlds first super villainess, and my grandfather from my dads side had died in jail when I was 7. I don't know why he was in there- my family never talks about my heritage.

If they knew Warren Peace, son of Baron Battle, had been in their house, they would totally screw.

Which is why, after offering Warren a drink I saw the car pulling up into my driveway, I panicked slightly. Without thinking, I rushed him up to my room, opened the window, and thanked him for taking me home and dealing with my arm.

"Here," he said, handing me one of his trademark fingerless gloves. "Wear it until your hand heals. It'll only take a few days. Your parents won't see the bandage."

And with that, he dived out of the window, flames erupting up around his jeans as he rose out of sight. I stared at the glove he had given me for a moment, before slipping it on. It was still warm from his hand, and for some reason the feel of the glove sent a shiver up my arm.

Standing in front of the mirror, I glared at my reflection. "You do _not_ like Warren Peace," I told my self, then turned, sighing.

See, I don't do guys because it always gets screwed up. I know its going to get screwed up, so why bother in the first place?

And Warren Peace of all people? First of all, he is still totally hung up on that Brittany girl, no matter how much he denies it. And second of all, even if he wasn't, he is still pretty much the most unattainable guy in school. You would think it would be one of the popular guys, like Gunn, but no, it was Warren Peace, Sky High's resident bad-boy. And I had stupidly gone and fallen for him.

Bloody hell, it's only my second week here; I've gone and screwed myself over already!


	5. Girl Talk and Gossip

_Well, this fan fiction seems to have taken over my life. I have coursework which was due in 3 weeks ago that I still haven't done, a Shakespeare essay due in 3 days that I haven't started, and my friends have told me I'm getting obsessed. : )_

_Btw, some-one asked about _Rain's powers_: basically, her blood seeps through her skin, and contains some sort of chemical compound that ignites when in contact with oxygen, which is why it burns._

_Oh, and no, Rain and Warren will not be getting together this chapter because I am a sick twisted little biatch and things can never be as straight forward as that..._

**Chapter 5: Girl talk and Gossip**

The next day was a Thursday. On the bus on the way to school, Layla invited to me to go to her house for the night on Friday.

"Magenta's coming too," she said. "Rain… is that Warren's glove?" her eyes came to rest on my hand. I nodded.

Getting out of her seat and coming to sit next to me, she grabbed my hand and examined it "how did you get it? Did he _give_ it to you?" she asked, and I winced at her rough handling of my injuries. "Oh god, sorry!" she said, her eyes softening with sympathy when she realised I was in pain. I took off the glove and my jacket, showing her the bandages, quickly explaining to her what had happened – how I'd gone to the paper lantern for dinner, Warren offered to walk me home, how we ended up flying and I'd crashed. I left out any details like how we'd randomly walked and talked for 45 minutes, the bit where I'd gotten a little too close to him... and the bit about kicking him out of my bedroom window.

"My parents would kill me if they knew I'd been flying, especially outside of school, so he gave me the glove to cover the bandage."

"Do you realise that when you walk into school with this, people aren't going to stop talking about it for days?"

I shrugged, thinking of the sensational stories that would start circulating. What was I going to say? I didn't want to tell people the truth, because a) it was private, and b) it was incredibly embarrassing. I decided to just not say anything at all.

The first two lessons were free periods because the science rooms were being repaired after some-one had put the wrong lid on a bottle of some acid substance which had leaked and proceeded to eat through four floors of the science classrooms. So Layla, Magenta and I sat on the branches of a gnarly old tree near the entrance to the school, talking about random stuff. I'd filled Magenta in on what had happened the previous night, so when two girls who had noticed the glove walked over to us, Maj started snorting uncontrollably as she tried to hold in her laughter.

"Hi, I'm Jenny," smiled one of the girls, a small dark haired one, who kind of reminded me of a pixie. "I was just wondering," she said, as her blond friend nudged her "the glove you're wearing… isn't it Warren Peace's?"

I nodded and the blond girl's mouth fell open.

"No way,"

"I told you," her dark-haired friend, Jenny, told her.

"How did you get it?"

"Err… he gave it to me."

The blond girl's jaw opened wider.

Magenta had by this time fallen off of the branch in peels of laughter, and Layla was trying very hard not to burst into a fit of giggles.

Jenny led her blond friend away, and as soon as they thought we were out of earshot, they burst into whispered conversations, obviously trying to come up with a reason for this amazing and unbelievable occurrence.

"My god, is everyone I talk to today going to be like that?" I wondered out loud to Layla, who shrugged.

"You don't understand what a big deal this is," she told me. "Warren is one of the most unattainable guys in the school, at least to them."

"Well yeah…" obviously I knew that.

"Yeah, loads of girls have huge crushes of him," Magenta said, brushing off leaves and grass from her black skirt and her purple fishnets.

"Really?" this was news to me. "I got the impression everyone was kind of… I dunno, _afraid_ of him."

"They are," Layla said. "But girls always go for the whole bad-boy thing, _and_ he's actually really good looking,"

I smiled, nodding in agreement.

"When he plays save the citizen…" Magenta whistled. "I always wondered how Lash and Speed managed to get girlfriends; I guess it's the same kind of deal,"

"I've never seen him play save the citizen," I said. "I haven't actually _seen_ a game of save the citizen." I was really starting to look forward to watching it though.

"Well, it starts next week, and the tournament starts about two weeks after that." Magenta informed me.

"Hey, look whose coming," Layla said, and I turned to see Will, Warren, Zach and Ethan crossing the grass towards us. My stomach did a weird fluttery thing when I caught sight of Warren, the memory of yesterday's encounter still fresh in my mind, but I was determine to carry on pretending it hadn't happened.

"How's your arm?" he asked when he was closer, gently lifting my hand and inspecting it. His touch sent a shiver up my arm.

"Fine…" I said, taking me time to answer. I wasn't adverse to warren holding my arm a little while longer…

Something must have showed on my face because Layla raised an eyebrow at me and after school the next day, as soon as we arrived at her house, she turned round and confronted me.

"So."

"So?" I looked at her innocently, though I _knew_ that she had noticed the way I was around Warren. It was nothing big, not something that anyone else would notice, but Layla was good with people. She noticed all those little things, the ones that would slip under most other people's radar.

"Warren."

"Is a pyrokinetic," I said randomly. WTF was I on about?

"How long have you liked him?" she asked, trying to look serious but failing as a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, dropping my bag by the staircase.

"Oh come on Rain, don't mess around. It's so obvious,"

"Only to you,"

"Exactly. So tell me, how long?"

"Err… since yesterday I guess… or at least, that's when I kind of realised."

"When you were flying home with him?"

"No, after lunch."

"So tell me what really happened on the way home yesterday."

"I told you."

"Not all of it you didn't," Layla told me.

"Since when did you become CIA lie detector/interrogator extraordinaire? Up until now, I had taken you to be this sweet hippy girl…"

Layla laughed. "Stop trying to change the subject," she told me.

So I told her exactly what had happened. The 45 minute walk to nowhere, the details of my spectacular crash, the bit where we almost kissed…

When I had finished, her mouth was open almost as wide as the blond girl at school today.

"That's so hot."

"I know."

"That's not good."

"I know."

"Because Warren's not over Brittany."

"I know."

"He doesn't know you like him."

"I know."

"You're a bit screwed,"

"I know."

An hour later, Magenta arrived, and still on the subject of love etc, the conversation turned to Layla and Will as we lay on Layla's bed in her room.

"So how far have you gone?" Magenta asked bluntly.

"Let's get some popcorn," Layla said brightly, ignoring Magenta's question.

"Don't try it," I advised her, pulling her back onto the bed as she tried to rise.

After much convincing, we finally got her to talk.

"Well, he's gave me a love bite on Saturday," she lifted her hair to show us a fading, light purple mark on her neck. Maj and I nodded approvingly.

"I take it your mom hasn't seen it," I said, and she shook her head.

"She likes Will, but she would still have a heart attack over it," Layla informed us.

"So has he tried to put his hand up your top?" Magenta wanted to know.

"Bloody hell Magenta, try being a little more subtle," I told her, then turned to Layla. "So has he?"

Layla went bright pink.

"He _so_ has!" Magenta and I squealed as Layla proceeded to turn red.

"Did you let him?" I said seriously."

"I… no, I stopped him," she said, her embarrassment not diminishing.

"How come?" Magenta was ruthless I getting the details.

Layla shrugged. "I thought… I don't know, I guess I…" she sighed. "I wouldn't mind it, but he hasn't tried again since then,"

For the next two hours we continued discussing Magentas and Layla's love lives.

Eventually, we had tired the subject out, and proceeded to talk about other things.

"So, who's going on that school trip?" I asked as we made our way to the kitchen for more food. We had received letters home inviting us on a school trip to Europe in two weeks time. It was going to be some sort of activities camp thing where we 'used our powers in simulated real-life situations' or some crap like that. I didn't really care; I was going because you got to miss a week of school.

"I'm going," Magenta said as she opened the cupboard and pulled out a packet of biscuits.

"So am I, "Layla said. "Will and the others are coming too. Including Warren." She looked at me pointedly as she said that, but I gazed back at her innocently. Magenta didn't notice anything strange – subtlety is not her strong point.

Later on, the conversation finally turned to me and Warren. Magenta was surprised to find out that I liked him, but agreed with Layla and I when we voiced our opinions of how he wasn't over Brittany yet.

"So what are you going to do?" Magenta asked.

I shrugged. "I still like Gunn you know," I told her. "And he seems to be… well, we flirt a lot in lesson,"

"You and Gunn would make such a good couple," Magenta said thoughtfully. "And it would totally help you get over Warren."

"Stating the obvious," I said. But at least I had decided on a course of action. And the girls were going to help me.

_Again, same deal as last time: if I don't get reviews, the next chapter doesn't go up…_


	6. Screw the Citizen

_Well dudes and dudettes, I was over the moon with the response I got to chapter 5, so here's chapter 6 for you, read, comment, enjoy!_

_Oh, and why is everyone so convinced that Rain and Warren are getting together? Like I said, I'm too sick and twisted to let that happen so easily… ;)_

_And, a little bit more angst…sorry _Infamous Peanut Thief_ , no _"RAWR MOTHER FUCKER GR! I'LL EAT YOU!" _but the idea about the angry love… well, I can work with that in later chapters… :P_

_And to my tall brunette friend… _I don't know you, stop stalking me bitch!_ Ha-ha joking, love you really, I put the next chapter up just for you! _

**Chapter 6: Screw the Citizen**

On Monday morning, I woke up feeling pissed off - Mondays tend to do that to me. I suppose that's why when I went to my wardrobe I decided to dress all in black; black combats, black ripped up tank top on top of a dark turquoise one, (ok, so not _all_ black) black studded belt, and of course Warren's fingerless glove. Adding a chain to my trousers and some dark blue eyeliner and mascara, my look was complete.

At lunch that afternoon, all anyone could talk about was the save the citizen game coming up. It was the first one of the school year (save the citizen never started until half way through October) and everyone was excited. After lunch everyone was filing into the school hall, pushing and shoving others out of the way to get good seats at the front. I followed Layla and the others to empty seats right up at the back.

"People don't realise these seats are the best ones," Zach told me, plonking himself down next to Magenta. "You can see everything from here, whereas at the front, your view is usually blocked by the shredder thingy."

I looked towards the middle of the gym, where a nasty looking device of rotating blades stood directly underneath a wooden dummy hanging from the ceiling.

Once coach Boomer had taken his place in the referee's seat, he called out the names of four students who entered the arena, and began to play.

Save the citizen was a riveting game. It was long enough for people to demonstrate their powers against each other, some of them pulling off amazing stunts, but it was short enough for you not to get bored. After the 5th game, Coach Boomer pointed to me. "Hey you, biker chick at the back!" he called out. I rose slowly, not knowing what to think. "Come on down, little miss hellracer. And your hippy friend!" he waved his hand at Layla, who looked shocked.

"Rain, I can't play save the citizen, my powers…" but she never finished her sentence as she followed me down the stairs to the arena.

We were up against a pretty African girl who I knew had power over air, and a scrawny little kid with glasses, who was a technopath. As the buzzer signalling the beginning of the game rang, the technopath put his arms out towards the shredder, which began to rearrange itself, going higher and higher towards the citizen. I prepared to throw a fireball but it was blown off course by the wind girl, who then launched herself at me, propelling herself through the air with her power. I ducked suddenly just as she was about to grab me, and she went sailing over my shoulder. There was a sickening thud and I whipped round expecting to see Layla hurt, but instead was greeted with the site of the girl crumpled on the floor, apparently unconscious. Layla was staring at her own hands in disbelief, and when I followed her gaze I realized that instead of arms, she had thorny, wooden branch-like things. As we both stared, the wood seemed to dissolve into her normal skin, until her hand looked like normal. I was shocked for a few seconds before regaining my senses and turning in time to see the shredder blades only inches away from the wooden doll. A well aimed fireball hit the technopath right in the chest, knocking him off his feet and sending the rotating blades o the shredder crashing into the ground. A thorny, bushy weed grew from under it, its branches twisting and turning as it grew higher and higher, wrapping itself around the citizen and bringing it back to the ground. I didn't need to turn round, knowing it was Layla who was doing it. When I lifted the 'citizen' off of the floor, the crowd cheered.

Our next battle didn't go quite as well. After Layla was inured by a ball of acid spit, I ran to tend to her as the acid spit boy burnt through the rope holding the wooden doll up, plunging it into the blades of the shredder. The crowd cheered, and a medical team rushed into the arena, just as they had done in our previous battle to help the technopath and the Nigerian girl.

"Nice work," Warren said to me when Layla and I arrived at our seats, about half way through the next battle. "Especially with your arm and all…"

"Stronghold, you're up!" Coach Boomer yelled, then noticed Warren next to him. "Hothead, you too!"

Most of the students in the hall turned to watch as Warren slowly rose up, and he and Will walked down the steps towards the arena. They were up against Jenny, the dark-haired girl who had spoken to me on Thursday, asking me about Warren's glove, who it turned out had wings. From what I'd seen so far, she was a pretty good flyer. Partnered with her was a guy I was fairly sure was related to her, who could form his arms into solid metal objects. His power kind of reminded me of the dude in terminator 2.

When the game began, I found myself holding my breath as the metal guy (I think his name was Blake or something) set upon Warren slicing the air with his arms, Warren dodging his attacks fairly easily, whilst Jenny rose into the air and dived at Will.

A minute into the game, they had switched, and now Will was easily blocking Blake's attacks, and Warren threw fireballs at Jenny as she soared through the air, spinning out of control as one of them hit her wig.

I could totally understand why girls fell for guys playing save the citizen, especially Warren. The way he moved, so smoothly, his black t-shirt clinging to his body underneath his leather jacket as flames erupted from his hands, was so sexy somehow. They way his hair fell in front of his face, and he shook his head to move it, the utter concentration in his eyes as they followed Jenny's movements through the air…

I stood, clapping and cheering when Will propelled Warren through the air, who snatched the citizen and landed the other side of the shredder. They both turned to survey the audience, Will flashing a smile at Layla when he saw her. I heard a sigh near me to my left, which I knew was Layla. Warren caught my eye and held it for a few seconds, a smile playing across his lips. The cheers grew louder (I suspect it was mostly the girls) and I knew it was because Warren smiling was a rare event, although it seemed to happen relatively often in my presence.

Allowed to take a short, 10 minute break, Warren and Will made their way up the stairs and collapsed on the seats between me and Layla, still out of breath. Layla bent to kiss Will, who pulled her down onto his lap.

"Get a room," Warren told them laughing. I stood in front of him, congratulating him on his game, (which was the most spectacular so far out of all the games today) as people in front pushed and jostled to get to him and Will to congratulate them as well. Other people who had played in earlier games were in similar situations across the gym I noticed, right before some-one backed into me, causing me to fall. And guess where I landed… that's right.

On Warren's lap.

I heard couple of girls a few rows in front of me gasp when they saw, and a lot of people turned to look, conversing amongst themselves about what it could mean. I rolled my eyes. There were probably going to be rumours going round about how Warren and I were dating now, or something ridiculous like that.

Remembering I was still on Warren's lap, I turned. "Oh shit, sorry," I exclaimed, but he just laughed.

"You might as well make yourself comfortable, if you try to stand up you'll only get pushed back down again," he told me.

"Strike a pose, people are going to start taking pictures soon!" I said to him grinning. "You're like a celebrity today!"

Sure enough, some-one did actually take a picture on their camera phone. More than one.

A few minutes later, Will and Warren were called back down to the arena for the next game. After another 5 games, they were undefeated. Coach Boomer was obviously looking around for a formidable opponent for them. Normally he would have chosen Speed and Lash at this point (or so Layla told me) but unfortunately, Speed wasn't in.

"Lash and…" Boomer scanned the crowd for some-one who could go up against Will and Warren."

"You, ice girl!" he called, pointing to a pretty blond girl in the front row. It took me a second to realise he was talking about Brittany. My mouth fell open, as did everyone else's in the entire hall, including Warren and Brittany themselves.

Coach Boomer, apparently unaware of the sensational nature of the order he had just given, glared at her. "Well?" he called out. "Hurry up, we haven't got all day!"

Brittany rose slowly, calmly walking into the arena, he eyes not leaving Warrens face.

The sound of the buzzer signalling the beginning of the game was met with an explosion of sound as Warren and Brittany simultaneously fired at each other, Warren's balls off fire and Brittany's balls of ice meeting in midair.

For a few seconds, Lash and Will simply stared – not that I blame them, I mean so did the rest of the school – before Will remembered the purpose of the battle and picked up a distracted Lash, throwing him to the other side of the arena. He grabbed the citizen easily, pulling it from its harness and landing on the other side of the shredder relatively gracefully. It was all over pretty quickly, but it didn't stop there. Warren and Brittany, oblivious to what was going on, were becoming more and more ferocious in their attacks, completely ignoring coach Boomers shouts, ordering them to stop. They seemed to be evenly matched, but I noticed that Warren was in fact pushing Brittany closer and closer to the edge of the arena. When she finally backed into it, with nowhere to go, she raised an icy shield, but Warren burnt through it easily, hitting her square in the chest with a particularly large fireball.

Without thinking, I ran down the steps towards the arena entrance, arriving after Warren had stepped out. Smoke rose from his hands as he walked, and I ran after him.

"Warren, are you ok?" I began, putting my hand on his shoulder. He spun round, jerking away from my hand, his eyes full of fury like I'd never seen in anyone before. The look he gave me radiated so much anger, my legs felt weak as he turned away, and I found it totally understandable as other students got as far out of his path as possible. He continued to the doors of the gym, which burst into flame when he was still metres from them, the fire eating away at the wood abnormally fast. He stepped through the flames and was gone.

"Rain…" Layla put her arm around me. "You ok?"

I turned, blinking back tears. _You cry for the stupidest of reasons_, I scorned myself.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I told Layla, trying to push the memory of Warren's eyes out of my mind. Why did it mean anything to me? I _don't_ like Warren, and he _doesn't_ like me.

_Yeah, keep telling yourself that_, I almost laughed out loud.

"Hey Rain," came another voice from my left. It was Gunn. "That was so rude the way Peace just snubbed you,"

I shrugged like I didn't care. "Well, I guess he was pretty pissed off…" we both glanced towards the smouldering doors, the fire being put out by a couple of the older students with water powers.

We stood in conversation for a few minutes longer, discussing the game, Gunn congratulated me in winning my first ever game of save the citizen. I tried really hard to ignore Layla, who was waggling her eyebrows at me from behind him, giving him 'significant' looks. It wasn't hard for me (or anyone else on the face of the earth) to realise what she was getting at.

And of course, after Gunn had gone, Layla came bounding up to me. "He so likes you!"

I laughed, but didn't write off the idea completely. I mean, I liked Gunn. He was good looking, sweet, and could be funny too. And after today… Warren wasn't exactly the kind of guy I tended to go for anyway.


	7. Truth Revealed

_Ok, so a slightly darker chapter here, I had to change the rating of the story cause of it. A little bit of Warren/Rain (again) at the beginning, since that pairing seems to be quite popular )_

**Chapter 7: Truth Revealed**

I really didn't want to go to Citizen Support on Wednesday morning. I knew Gunn wasn't going to be in lesson this morning because he'd mentioned yesterday how he had an appointment or something, and wouldn't be at school until half way through 3rd period.

As a wondered slowly to my lesson, I was surprised and curious to see Warren standing casually by the wall near my classroom door. I kept walking, pretending I hadn't noticed him, until he said my name.

"Rain."

My stomach doing that stupid little back flip, I turned to him.

"You going to lesson?"

I shrugged. "Do I have any other choice?"

Warren smiled a secretive smile which made me completely forget the fact that I was supposed to be upset with him after yesterday's events.

"You could come with me," he said, leaning back against the wall.

It was stupid to even consider it. I knew that if I went with him, something would happen. Something like what had happened last week. But I still agreed. Or maybe that's why I agreed? I don't know. All I know is that I was following Warren instead of going to my CS lesson.

We walked a little way down the hall and stopped outside a large grate of a ventilation shaft. Warren pried it from the wall, revealing a large space that could fit 2 or 3 people quite comfortably. He ushered me inside and came in after me, sliding the grate back into place behind him.

"Can you fly like me?" he asked. "I mean, without wings?"

I glanced upward and realised where we were going. There wasn't enough room for me to use my wings, so it was going to be a problem for me to get up there…

I shook my head, and he shrugged.

"I'll just have to carry you then," he said stepping behind me.

It took me a few seconds to process that statement. _Carry me?_

I drew a sharp breath as I felt his hands slide around my waist, his fingertips warm against my exposed skin. I wished right then that I had worn a longer top and anything other than the low-rise vintage jeans I was wearing right now.

"Ready?" he breathed in my ear, ending a chill down my spine as flames ignited around us. And then we were rising through the shaft, me leaning on Warren, feeling the muscles under his shirt against my back, his hands still firmly around my waist.

Once at the top of the shaft, Warren set me down on a tiny ledge, only about 20cm in width, while he worked on the latch of the grate that lead out onto the roof. Eventually it swung open, and he turned to help me through.

The view was amazing. It was like the view from an aeroplane window without those tiny windows that you have to press your face against to see out. Staring at the earth, hundreds of metres below me, I was totally awed.

"No-one knows about it," Warren said from behind me. "I don't think it's ever occurred to anyone to ever bother coming up here…"

We stayed up there for the rest of the lesson, just talking about random stuff. When the conversation turned to save the citizen, Warren went quiet. "Sorry about yesterday," he said to me, and I shrugged.

"Totally understandable, considering what had happened" I told him, but he shook his head.

"I shouldn't let my temper get out of control like that," he said. "My powers get out of control."

"Is that what happened when you set fire to the doors?" I asked "was that an accident?"

He nodded. "When I'm angry, my powers are so much stronger… but I'm not in control anymore."

I nodded knowingly. I had that exact same problem… except mine was more likely to kill me.

A little while later, the bell rang, signalling the end of lesson and I reluctantly stood up, following Warren to the shaft. Again I was temporarily robbed of all ability to speak or even breathe normally as Warren wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him tightly as we descended down the shaft.

My next lesson was PSHE, and once again Warren walked me there. Walking through the door, I was surprised to see Layla wasn't there yet – she arrived a little after me.

"Hi," I said, and she smiled warmly, and once the teacher had explained this lessons assignment, she turned to me.

"You skipped class with Warren." She tried –and failed- to look serious, as she asked me.

"Yeah," I said, wondering how she knew

"So what happened?" Layla wanted to know, and I told her.

"…and then he walked me to my lesson," I finished finally. Layla nodded thoughtfully.

"Rain…" she began, her face full of concern. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to do this anymore."

"Do what?" I was confused.

"You know, this… whatever it is. This thing you have going on with Warren."

"I…" I didn't know what to say.

"Look, each time this happens, you fall for Warren more and more. You're just making it worse for yourself-"

"What, you think I put myself in these situations? It just happens-"

"No Rain, it does _not_ just _happen_. You can't tell me that when you went off with Warren today, you didn't think it was likely that something like that would happen."

I was starting to get angry now, even though I knew what she was saying was true.

"Well how did you know I skipped lesson with him? Is it any of your business?"

"Why are you getting so pissed off at me? I'm trying to help you!" Layla told me, a hint of anger in her voice.

"Help me what? What's going to happen that is so bad, just because I like him?" I snapped, accidentally breaking the pencil I had been using to draw a cannabis leaf. (we were making posters about drug abuse)

"This!" she said, grabbing my left arm, turning it so my forearm was exposed. "Exactly what happened before!" she traced her finger along a few barely visible lines on my arm, lines I thought no-one would ever notice. My anger dissipated immediately, and I sank back into my chair.

"You know?" my voice was barely above a whisper.

Layla nodded, her eyes full of concern. "But don't worry, I haven't told anyone."

Many people who had been watching our exchange, turned back to their assignment, unable to hear what was going on anymore. The teacher sat at the desk at the front completely oblivious.

"When did you figure it out?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Last week. When you first wore Warrens glove, and you were showing me the bandages." She was silent for a second, before continuing. "Do your parents know?"

I shook my head.

"Does anyone else know?"

I shook my head again.

"You mean you never told _anybody_? Nobody noticed?"

"It was winter. I wore long sleeves." I told her shortly, unwilling to talk about it.

"Yeah, but if it's still visible now… I mean, during the summer you couldn't have gone around with long sleeves…"

I didn't answer her.

"Rain?"

"Nobody noticed," I said to her. "Because nobody particularly gave a shit, ok?"

"I'm sorry…" Layla sounded as if she was about to cry, and when I turned to her, her face was full of concern. It made me want to cry as well.

"Layla, it's ok. It's over. I sorted myself out," I told her.

"But that's just it," Layla said. "If this thing with Warren goes on, you might end up doing it again,"

I finally realised what she was saying. If I continued this whole thing with Warren, I was going to end up emotionally screwed up, and I would more than likely go back to cutting myself.

Because last year, I really was fucked up. Emotionally, mentally, whatever. At my old school, popularity came with a price. It was like being a celebrity, only without the money, the VIP passes, and the bestselling tracks/films. Always under pressure to look good, most of the girls within the upper social circles were bulimic. The ones at the top of the social chain all had some sort of addiction – cigarettes, weed, coke, alcohol or sex. It was always at least one of them. And of course, when I became popular, I saw less and less of my friends. Soon I stopped really seeing them at all, except maybe in lesson. The other popular girls weren't my friends. They were all nice to my face, and I was to them – we had to be – but there was no doubt that they would be bitching about you as soon as you left the room. And the guys? Well, they were all after one thing; it's not hard to guess what that was.

When Layla asked me about it, I told her. I guess I felt I could trust her, like I hadn't really trusted many people before, even though I'd barely known her for 3 weeks.

At the end of the lesson, when we were all filing out of the room, she turned to hug me. Surprised but pleased, I hugged her back, and for a while afterwards, I felt a lot happier – like I'd just gotten a huge weight off of my chest.

_Um… yeah, I wasn't sure about this chapter when writing it, but I thought it might be a good idea to give a little background story…_

_Comments are muchly appreciated. Remember, the more reviews I get, the faster the next chapter goes up! )_


	8. Conversations

_Hahaha I have finished my Shakespeare essay: go me!_

_Err yeah, so here's the next chapter, I'm not too sure what I think of it._

**Chapter 8: Conversations**

The next day, I was on my way to my locker before lunch, when I ran into Gunn. Literally.

"Oh shit, sorry!" I was absolutely mortified, but he seemed to find it amusing.

"It's ok." He smiled. "But out of curiosity, where were you off to in such a hurry?"

"Oh, I was just going to put my stuff in my locker before lunch," I told him.

"You must be really hungry," he observed.

"Well no,"

"So why the rush?"

"I um…" I looked at the floor as I mumbled: "I wanted to get a slice of cheesecake before it was all gone,"

Gunn laughed. "That really was the last answer I was expecting," he told me. "But I'll tell you what; you go put your stuff in your locker, and I'll get the slice of cheesecake for you… on one condition,"

"Condition?" I repeated sceptically.

"You have to sit with me today at lunch."

I broke into a smile. "Deal!"

Gunn gave a satisfied nod, before passing me to continue his way down the corridor. "Oh, and Rain?" he said over his shoulder a few seconds later. "Smile more. You look gorgeous."

I was still grinning when I got to my locker a few minutes later. But after shoving my stuff in and shutting it, when I returned the way I came, I heard familiar voices.

"…have to stop," Layla was saying. Peering round the corner, I saw that Layla was standing with her arms folded, speaking to Warren, who was leaning against the lockers in that sexy way of his… _shut up brain_! Will was there two, his arm loosely around Layla's waist.

"I'm not doing anything," Warren said.

"Yes you are, you just don't realise it," Layla said. "You're using her to help you get over Brittany without realising. And you're hurting her without realising."

"How? There's nothing…" Warren's voice trailed of as he realised exactly what Layla was talking about. I saw him shake his head.

"I've spoken to her already about it." Layla told him. "Please Warren; I don't want her to get hurt again,"

There was a pause

"Oh man, I've been a total dickhead," Warren groaned. "It's just because of…" he trailed off, not wanting to admit that Brittany was getting to him. But he didn't need to say it out loud, Layla and Will understood.

I remembered at that point that it would probably be a good idea to tell them that I wasn't going to be sitting with them at lunch, so stepped out from around the corner and strode confidently towards them, still smiling from Gunn's comment.

"You look happy," Will observed. "Any particular reason?"

I shrugged. "Maybe…"

Layla raised her eyebrow at me.

"I was just wondering if it was ok if I don't sit with you guys today?" I winced realising how that sounded. "I mean… Gunn asked me to sit with him, and I agreed so…"

Layla's face split into a grin. "That's great Rain,"

"You don't have to ask our permission to sit somewhere else," Warren said to me.

Will nodded in agreement, and I smiled at them gratefully.

"Thanks guys… oh, by the way, here," I said, removing Warren's glove from my hand and giving it to him. "You might want this back."

Still smiling, I turned and walked down the corridor in the direction of the lunch hall.

15 minutes later I was seated at a table with Gunn and his friends, (which included Brittany) halfway through my slice of lemon cheesecake. I felt a little nervous, because this was one of the more 'popular' groups in school, and I didn't really know many of the people there. But I needn't have worried- they weren't like the popular clique in my old school; they seemed to be genuinely nice, making an effort to include me in the conversation. Brittany, Warren's ex, turned out to actually be a really nice person.

After a while, the conversation turned to the school trip.

"How many of you are going?" I asked, and most of them shook their heads and said 'not me' or something similar, except Brittany and a really pretty oriental looking girl, whose name I didn't know.

"Apparently, there are only a few activities a day, so we're going to have loads of time to do whatever we want," Brittany told me.

"Cool," I commented. "We can have a party." I had actually been joking, but the oriental girl smiled enthusiastically.

"Yeah, we can have an outdoor one, with a huge bonfire and everything!"

"Are we even allowed to have large bonfires there?" I asked. "Isn't it like in the middle of the woods or something?"

Brittany nodded. "Yeah, but we're staying in these little huts on a sort of estate," she said. "So we probably will have some-where to have a bonfire."

We spent the rest of lunch talking about the school trip and who was going, what kinds of things we would be doing, at whether the sleeping arrangements would involve guys and girls in the same room.

As soon as lunch was over, Gunn walked me to me locker before heading to his own, and I continued to mad sciences – biology, where Layla grilled me about the details of what happened at lunch with Gunn whilst we wrestled with some sort of mutated Venus fly trap plant that was attempting to eat us as we tried to harvest its seeds. Layla did really well; her plant wasn't trying to tear her face off, it just nipped her hand if she touched any of the huge yellow petals that framed its mouth, whereas mine was pretty much trying to kill me if I went within a metre of it. After that lesson, it was save the citizen again.

"When we come back from the trip to Europe, the signup for the tournament starts."

"You have to sign up?"

"Yeah, but you don't get to pick who you're paired with. Coach Boomer picks random names out of a hat, and you have to play together."

"That's crap."

"I know."

"Is Boomer coming on the trip with us?" I asked

"No,"

"Do you know which teachers are?"

"Er…" Layla thought for a moment. "Principle Powers is, and so is our PSHE teacher… I'm not sure about any others though."

I shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."

And a few days later, we did. Arriving at school particularly early on Monday morning, we were told that the journey to wherever it was that we were going would take about 5 hours.

"The bus goes faster than your average aeroplane," Principle Powers said, gesturing at the sleek blue and chrome winged vehicle parked next to the school bus. "But Europe is still a long way away!"

"Where exactly are we going?" asked one of the 50 students gathered around Powers.

"We're going to a little place in the country about mile from the village Orla. It's in western Poland, almost right on the Russian border."

"Poland? How the hell are we going to talk to anyone there?" some-one else in the crowd said, lots of people nodding in agreement. Including me.

"You won't have to; the training ground you're going too is extremely secluded." Powers said. "You won't meet anyone except the staff there."

I shrugged "sounds ok…"

Layla handed me a sheet of paper. "You me and Maj are sharing a room," she said. "A hut actually."

I checked the piece of paper.

"Where'd you get this?" I asked.

"Some student just gave it to me," Layla shrugged. "We're in house 12."

"House?"

"Yeah, we're staying in these little hut things."

"Boys and girls? Together?" It was a shame Gunn wasn't coming… _but Warren will be there, _said a tiny voice in my brain. I purposefully ignored that voice.

We filed into the silver bus plane thingy, which was actually quite nice, nothing like the school bus we came to school in. there were three seats either side of the aisle, which was at least twice as wide as the one on the school bus, and at the back of the plane there were two toilets and one of those dispenser machine thingies, with sweets and drinks and stuff.

The boys were in the seats in front of us. Ethan wasn't coming because he was at home, ill with the mumps.

An hour later, after all the luggage had been stored, attendance checked, last minute phone calls and the removal of one student from the trip after she broke down in tears, everyone had made themselves comfortable and the plane was ready for take off.

The journey took ages, but it wasn't that bad. About 4 hours into the flight, we decided to play 21 dares. I landed the first dare, so I ended up going up to a random guy and saying "excuse me, do you have any condoms? It's kind of an emergency…" the guy shook his head, so I asked his friend, who also said no. "Impotent fools!" I said scornfully, turning away. A few seats away, Layla and the others were in stitches. So were most of the people who had heard our exchange. I don't think it was that funny though. Magenta could have picked something more imaginative for me to say.

Next, Layla had to go up to some girls at the back of the plane and tell them that she was in fact utterly infatuated with one of them. The looks on those girls faces nearly made me wet myself.

Half an hour later, the dares were getting boring, so Magenta came up the great idea (sarcasm there people!) to play spin the bottle with a magnetic spinner thingy that she'd gotten free with a lip-gloss she's bought. (The perfect opportunity to test out the new colour protect formula!) I had to kiss Zach, Magenta ended up kissing Zach and Layla, Layla ended up kissing Will, then Warren. They were all just a quick touch of the lips, (the guys had a spaz attack when Layla and Maj kissed) although Maj and Zach's kiss lasted a little longer, and Layla and Will didn't come up for air for two minutes. Then, after much convincing, Warren finally agreed to spin the spinner. It ended up pointing to me. We looked at each other in surprise and unease. See, we basically had this unspoken agreement about Warren and me; we were going to keep our distance, pretending that nothing had happened. To not kiss would be breaking that rule we had made, the one about pretending nothing happened. But the kiss itself could have far worse consequences…

At that moment, we were all pulled back into our seats by the automatic straps as the plane began its decent towards the ground. I didn't know whether to be annoyed or relieved…

_Remember reviews meanupdates people! _


	9. Settling In

_Sorry about the lack of updates and sorry this chapter isn't great… its gets better, I promise! It's just I've been busy with exams (which I did today, go me!) but now they are over and done with so expect chapter 10 soon : )_

**Chapter 9: Settling in**

The place we were staying at was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was basically half a mile of field, surrounded on all sides by forest. We were staying in these tiny huts which had only two rooms (a bedroom with 4 beds and a tiny 'front room') and I mini-kitchen (there was basically a stove next to the sink and a cupboard on the wall, and that's it) with a porch that had a bench on it. Everything was wooden. There were about 25 huts altogether, and three extra ones which contained 4 bathrooms each. So whenever you needed the loo, you had to walk across the estate to the bathrooms, which at night, was probably going to be really creepy.

We left our luggage on our beds, extremely relieved to find that the hut contained a TV. Until we turned it on and found that there were only 2 channels: two Russian and a Polish one. Great.

Once we had wondered around the estate (which was basically just the huts, with an area for bonfires,) we met up with the guys and decided to explore the area around the place. Layla was in heaven. She kept pointing out things like birds nests, Rabbit holes, deer footprints, and other random things that we otherwise would never had noticed. I found it kind of interesting (being a bit of an animal lover myself) but Layla was getting so excited over the smallest things that I had to laugh. We followed the tiny footpath that we were on, which went parallel with the road that ran alongside the little green fence that marked the edge of the estate. A little further up, we came across a body of water. It was small, only about 10-15 metres across, and there was a little crudely built but sturdy looking pier that jutted out about a metre and a half into the water. There were three make-shift wooden benches (basically huge logs sunken into the ground) in a semicircle around the remains of a little bonfire.

"Nice," Will commented. "Very cosy."

"We can swim here," I said, gesturing to the pier. "This wouldn't have been built of people didn't go in the water,"

"It's beautiful here," Layla sighed, sitting on one of the benches. It was true; this place was really picturesque, surrounded on all sides with lush greenery, a weeping willow on the far side of the huge pond completing the picture.

"We should name this place," Zach said randomly.

"It probably already has a name," Layla told him.

"Well, we don't know it, do we?" he replied. "We can give it a name for us to call it."

"Yeah, like… lakeside?" I said, thinking of the shopping centre back in England.

"No offence, but that's really crap." Magenta told me. I shrugged.

The others, not being able to come up with a better name (we went through some really ridiculous suggestions like 'mango' and 'wonderland' and 'Mona Lisa') eventually agreed to calling it '_the pond_'. How imaginative.

Half an hour later we arrived back at the estate, just in time to be ordered to collect firewood for the bonfire.

"We should have waited another 20 minutes," Magenta muttered as we turned away.

It didn't take long to collect firewood though, and soon we were all sitting around the fire, talking and laughing, before principle powers stood up and told us about our activities for the next few days.

After our 'timetables' were handed out, we simply sat around taking, before little by little, most of the students went to bed. I decided that although I wasn't ready to crash for the night, I would go to bed now before I was left alone with Warren. Layla and Magenta joined me.

Surprisingly, after getting changed, I fell asleep pretty quickly, and was woken up the next morning to the sound of Layla's voice as she pulled open the curtains in the room. I dove under the covers in an attempt to stop the light getting to my eyes and waking me up fully, but Layla yanked them away from me before I could get a good grip.

"Come on Rain," she said, as I snatched the covers from her, this time holding on tightly as she tried to pull it away.

15 minutes later, both her and Magenta had gotten a hold of one leg each, and were trying to pull my out of bed while I held onto the headboard for dear life. Needless to say, by then I was pretty much awake. The door to the bedroom swung open and in walked Will with his camera, snapping a photo. The flash of light surprised me so that I let go of the headboard, and all three of us fell off the bed.

"well, I was planning to get pictures of you guys when you'd just woken up, but that was so much better!" he exclaimed, before ducking out of the room to avoid the onslaught of pillows which hit the wall behind where his head had been only a few seconds ago.

45 minutes later we were outside, and being split into groups by principle Powers. I was with Layla, but Magenta in a different group, and she was kind of annoyed, but then it turned out Zach was in her group, so she was slightly less annoyed. Then we found that Will and Warren were with us.

Following principle Powers, we went through a group of trees that lined the eastern side of the estate, and came out onto a field on the other side.

It was huge. The size of a football pitch at least, sunken about 5 or 6 metres into the ground. Looking down, I saw that the field was almost like a maze. A fake, miniature city had been built. It contained houses, office blocks, even a little park area, with swings and stuff.

"Whoa, what the hell?" was the first thing that came out of my mouth

"This," Powers began, giving me a disapproving look, "is going to be your first activity."

We were allowed to pick teams of 3 to 5, and obviously, Warren, Will, Layla and I were together. We were led into a little building in the 'stadium' and given an envelope by one of the instructors that I hadn't noticed before now. She was pretty with short dark red hair, which was layered and arranged in a messy-on-purpose windswept rock chick kind of 'do. I complemented her on it and she gave a warm smile as she handed us our envelope.

"Basically, when you hear the buzzer, you can open the envelope- the instructions are inside." She told us as she headed out the door. "I'm not supposed to help you, but since you were so nice about my hair, I'll give you a clue, she winked at me. "Ventilation shafts in the buildings are great ways to get in and out of rooms unnoticed." Then she turned and walked through the door that had led us in here. Seconds later, I buzzer sounded and we tore open the envelope, Layla reading it out loud as we crowded round to have a look.

**Welcome to Sunken City. **

**You are a team of super heroes chosen to help defend this city from its latest threat.**

**Someone has planted a bomb somewhere, which, when detonated, will flatten the entire city, and it is your job to stop it.**

The letter went on to give us some clues to the location of the 'bomb' and proceeded to inform us that the other teams of superheroes were in fact villains in disguise which we had to thwart, and some other random stuff that I didn't bother reading.

"So basically, we have to pretend that this is a real city we're saving," Will said as his eyes skimmed over the letter.

"And we can't team up with anyone else," Layla pointed out.

"This is going to be fun," I said, smiling an evil smile. I loved save the citizen, and this looked set to be even better.

"Can't wait," Warren said, his eyes flashing in anticipation. "We're up against everyone else, right?"

Layla nodded.

"Then it's a shame lash and Speed weren't allowed on the trip," he smirked.

_Err… yeah. I know it's not great _:s_ but the coming chapters will be better! I'll have chapter 10 up as soon as I get a couple of reviews for this, k?_


	10. Battle of Sunken City

_This chapter isn't great either because I'm kind of ill, and where I had planned to have lots of spying and sleuthing and clues, my head hurt when I was trying to come up with something clever and complicated. I got pissed off, so I settled for random violence instead. : )_

**Chapter 10: the battle of Sunken City**

The first thing we did was go to the top of the building to check our whereabouts. We were in a 3 storey block of flats near the edge of sunken city, and, checking each room we came across, we eventually found a map. Some-one had conveniently marked a little red dot with the words "you are here". We took it with us to the rooftop and looked around at the landscape below us. Very few of the buildings were higher than two storeys, so we could pretty much see everything around us. Using the clues in the letter, we established that the bomb was planted in the town hall, almost at the centre of the city. I wondered if Powers was watching us and looked around to the edges of the stadium, realising that we were now closed in by a high metal wall that had risen up around the edges of sunken city.

"You know, Sunken City isn't a very imaginative name," I commented to the others, who were trying to come up with a strategy.

"Whatever," Will said. "Come help us Rain, we need to figure out a way of getting to this building without being seen," he pointed to a building on the map which was right across from the town hall.

"Well, the instructor said something about ventilation shafts…" I said, thinking back to earlier.

"No, that's for moving around _in_ the building." Layla said. "We need to get to the building in the first place."

I shrugged. "We could fly over there… Will could carry you." I shrugged.

"Or I could carry Warren and you could carry Layla," Will said.

"Carry Warren?" I was confused.

"What, you expect Warren to sprout wings too?" Will asked amusedly. "Hang on, you haven't recently sprouted wings have you?" he turned to Warren, who shook his head. "Exactly." Will turned back to me.

"Err… you do know Warren can fly, right?" I asked.

"What? Warren? Since when…"

"You're not really good with keeping up to date, are you Stronghold?" Warren said. "Pick your girlfriend up and let's go,"

Again I felt the familiar itching-burning sensation in my shoulders as my wings unfolded. Warren was already powering up, flames erupting from under the soles of his shoes, rising to engulf his lower half as he rose of the ground. Will paused for a few seconds, as he watched Warren with intent curiosity, before quickly sweeping an unsuspecting Layla into his arms and taking off. I flapped my wings, pushing air under them to lift me off of the ground. We flew quickly, flitting from building to building, not daring to go any higher or fly straight for fear of being spotted. We were starting to treat it like a real mission.

Unfortunately, to get to the building we needed to; we had to fly across the open space of the park area. And there people there, two teams. They didn't seem to be fighting.

"That's totally unfair; we're not supposed to team up with others!" Layla hissed as we stood poised on top of a particularly low building.

"Lets just go and hope they won't notice us," Will said, taking off.

"Will, wait-" I started, but it was too late, he was already in the air, Layla in his arms.

Unfortunately, the two teams on the ground did notice us. And immediately attacked. The acid spit guy was there, as was Brett and Jenny, the metal guy and the flying girl. And also four others that I didn't know. Will tried to dodge, but was eventually hit in the shoulder with a ball of acid spit, which was fired so rapidly it was actually quite amazing. I folded my wings, not getting rid of them completely, and stepped off the edge of the roof, dropping two storeys and landing easily on the ground level with them, balls of blood already igniting in my hand. And then… it was like something out of a film. Too fast for me to comprehend, I was fired at by the acid spit guy and some other random person who was throwing some sort of weird purpley-black energy balls. I didn't have time to think, I just ducked and dodged, spinning and firing simultaneously, missing the energy balls and Brett's slicing blades by centimetres. I was hit in the left shoulder by one of those weird energy balls, and immediately pain spasmed down my arm and my back, spreading from the point on my shoulder where it hit me. The guy, who I think was related to Jenny because they looked kind of similar, was advancing on me, a triumphant smirk on his face as he casually tossed an energy ball from one hand to the other, as I sank to the ground, clutching my shoulder and squeezing my eyes shut to stop the tears. _Fuck,_ those things _hurt_! I opened my eyes again in time to see him fall forward, a look of outrage, surprise and pain on his face as he stumbled, before whipping round. He now faced away from me and I saw what had caused his fall. Almost right in the middle of his back was a large burn, which went through his clothes, revealing a circle of blackened and blistered skin. It looked nasty and painful. He had other burns on him, his shoulder, his leg etc, which I had been the cause of. But none of mine had been hot enough to do that kind of damage. I knew it was Warren, and the sight of the nasty wound in front of me served as an almost disturbing reminder that no matter how tame and under control Warren seemed to be, there was a reason everyone at school was afraid of him. I looked up to where he was standing, hands on fire, the corners of his mouth turned up in satisfaction as he stared down Jenny's brother. The others, who had been watching me, acid-spit-boy (who I just called acid in my head), Brett, and Jenny's brother (wasn't his name Joe or something?) as we fought, also turned to Warren, looking slightly worried.

Without warning, Warren let loose a flurry of attacks that where almost too fast for the eye to see. Brett was hit, as was Acid and Joe (or whatever his name is) and some of the others, before they even realised what was happening. But Warren didn't stop, he fired another round, before striding across the playground and pulling me too my feet.

"You ok?" he asked.

I shrugged. "My shoulder…" it had gone numb. "What the _fuck_ was that?" I said, to nobody in particular.

I walked over to the swing and sat on it. Massaging my shoulder, as a something flew through the air, right past my ear and hit the chain of the swing. Acid spit.

The chain broke and I landed on the cold, hard ground under it. Now I was pissed.

"You little…" raising my hand, I fired a flaming ball at him. And another. And another. Relentlessly I fired, hitting either him, or the acid that he sent hurtling through the air. None of it reached me. I was dimly aware that I was using my left arm, the one that was hit, and that I was feeling none of the usual pain that came with using my power. There was no burning just under my skin all the way up my arm, no pins and needles sensation as the blood poured from my hands. It was because the energy ball had deadened my nerves. He'd unwittingly made it easier for me… I kept firing, but Joe had risen, a second patch of blackened skin on his arm, and was preparing to fire. As soon as he raised his arm, I ducked out of the way and ran, still firing as I leapt over the see-saw and to the tiny climbing frame. It was one of those kiddies' ones, for 5 year olds. It took me only a second to step onto it, using it to propel myself through the air. I wasn't going to risk opening my wings at this point; they were huge and would only make me an easy target. I fired at the acid-boy as I sailed through the air, and crashed into Joe, who had almost hit me with another of his energy balls. We both fell to the ground, but this time I didn't fuck up my arm due to the fact that I had a soft landing. Namely Joe. Before he could push me off and get up, thick thorny vines burst from the ground, wrapping themselves tightly around his arms and legs. The others were similarly incapacitated, and Will was on the ground next to Layla, a bandage round his shoulder (where the hell had she gotten a bandage from?) where a nasty dark substance was seeping through. It wasn't blood.

A few minutes later we were on the roof of the Town hall, deciding to scrap the plan that involved the building across the street. It involved patience and stealth, and after the fight none of us were feeling particularly patient or stealthy. We were going to storm in and burn/smash everything to oblivion, and disarm the bomb.

"We should make sure there's no-one else in there first," Layla said. "I don't want you two getting carried away whilst there are people in there."

I assumed she meant Will and Warren, but then I realised she was actually looking at _me_ and Warren.

"Me? What the hell have I got to-"

"Just let me check if there's anyone inside." She interrupted, and Will lifted her again, disappearing over the edge of the building. Seconds later, they returned, Layla's face looking a lot less happy than when she had left the rooftop.

"Um… I don't think we should go storming in," she said. I looked at her questioningly, but it was will who spoke.

"Lasers. They have these laser things in the entrance hall. Motion detectors or something, you know, like in the movies,"

"I guess we go down the ventilation shaft then…" Warren said from just behind me.

Which is why, before I knew what was happening, I was trying hard to ignore that fact that I was once again held tightly in Warrens arms as we descended through one of the shafts that Will had easily ripped open from the roof. Will was below us, holding Layla, and as soon as his feet touched the ground he pushed the panel which clattered to the floor. We stepped out one by one into the room, where at the far end we could see the laser thingies, which were moving. It kind of reminded me of the corridor in resident evil… except hopefully, these lasers did not slice you up into little pieces.

We walked over to the large fake marble reception desk thingy (are town halls supposed to have reception desks? I didn't think so…) where a little black box sat, its red numbers flashing as the timer counted down. It said there were still 45 minutes left.

"We're early," I remarked as I pulled the red wire out of the side.

Half an hour later we were back at the estate, laden with huge bars of chocolate, which we had received as prizes for winning in Sunken City. Deciding to go for a swim in the pond, we got changed one by one in the bedroom with the door closed. First magenta, then me, and then Layla. As she went in and shut the door, Magenta and I waited for her. We had met Magenta in the nurse's outpost after our activity, where we were treated for our various injuries. She was in an oxygen mask because she had inhaled something or other which had caused her to have an asthma attack. As I pulled on a pair of denim cut-off shorts and a yellow tank top on top of my green-blue two-piece swimsuit, a scream came from behind the closed bedroom door. Without thinking, I slammed the door open and burst into the room closely followed by Magenta. The sight that greeted me stopped me as if I had hit a brick wall. Layla was facing the window, holding her duvet against her. Standing behind her, I realised why when I noticed that there was nothing covering her buttocks. She was in fact completely naked, save for the duvet which was covering her front.

Putting two and two together, I deduced that some-one must have looked in the window as Layla had been changing, so I ran to it and put my head out the window, looking both sides to see who it was, but there was no-one there. I turned to Layla, who's face pretty much matched her hair at this point and asked "who was it?"

She shrugged and mumbled under her breath "I think it was Brittany."

Right, that's it, I'm going to kill that little blond bitch the next time I see her. Unless it was an accident… I'll ask her right before I beat the shit out of her.

_I know, I'm sorry, it's not great... so as compensation, I might put a little bit of Warren/Rain in the next chapter, k? Oh and remember, no reviews, no chapter. Death threats warning me to put up the next chapter or else are always welcome. _


	11. Stupid Reasons

_Really sorry I haven't updated, I've been ill the last few days. : ( but still, I'm alive. Go me._

_You want to know why I don't write Rain/Warren chapters? Because I'm crap at writing romance or whatever (I'm sure you will have noticed)_

**Chapter 11: Stupid Reasons**

I stood by the bench with my towel, looking at the water. The sun was beginning to set, the light it cast making the water look black. Like molten obsidian. When I stepped in, it was warm.

"Rain! How can you go in that water, it's probably barely above freezing point!" Magenta said to me. After going back to our hut and getting changed, we'd met up with the boys and decided to come to the pond to hang out and relax for the rest of the evening.

"It's warm," I told her, now up to my waist in water. "It's spent all day heating up!"

"7pm is the best time to swim," came Warren's voice from the end of the pier, as I waded further, the water now just below my armpits. I turned to see him sliding in, sending little ripples across the black surface of the water. I submerged myself, kicking with my legs to send me forward, feeling something bush my face as I swam. Probably a frog or something. Rising to the surface seconds later, I was about half way across the bond. Magenta stood on the pier in her purple bikini, looking into the water doubtfully. Layla and Will stood near the shore where the water only reached up to their ankles, with Layla leading Will as he inched forward. There as a huge splash, and where Magenta had been a second before, Zach was now standing, an I-couldn't-resist look on his face as Magenta surfaced, fuming. She grabbed his foot and there was another splash as she pulled him into the water after her. Will and Layla were both soaked too now, and so began the splashing war that lasted at least an hour. And an hour after that, we realised it was almost completely dark, and decided to get out and make a little bonfire. We weren't really in the mood to go back to the estate. Grabbing some fallen branches that were lying around, we piled them on top of the remains of an old fire, and Warren set them alight. So we sat of the 'benches' (i.e. the wooden logs in the ground) and talked about random stuff. We started telling ghost stories, and Warren freaked us all out so much that by the time he'd finished we were all huddled in a little group, as close to the fire as we could, glancing around nervously into the surrounding darkness. Warren could barely keep from laughing at us.

Layla decided to tell us a funny story involving a guy with a misbehaving dog and a slutty next door neighbour. Soon we were literally rolling on the floor laughing, our fear of things lurking in the forest around us totally forgotten. An hour later, Layla had fallen asleep on Will's lap, and 20 minutes later, Magenta and Zach dropped off too, followed by Will after another 15 minutes.

Warren and I were the only ones awake, though I was feeling a little tired. I glanced over Warren to see if he was wide awake or barely keeping his eyes open, and was slightly surprised to see him looking at me intently, as if there was something about me he couldn't quite figure out.

"What?" I asked, as the flames caused shadows to dance across his face, the red streak in his hair looking like molten fire itself. He shook his head, not taking his eyes off of me.

"Your eyes, they're…" he began, pausing as he tried to come up with the words. "…different," he said finally.

"um…" I wasn't sure what to say.

He shrugged, seemingly coming back to his sense as he looked away. "The fire," he said. "Makes them look a different colour,"

This annoyed me. The way he had looked at me, it had given me a tiny spark of hope... the hope I had been trying to squash into nothingness since the conversation between Layla and I after I had skipped class with Warren. And the fact that he had sparked that hope then squashed it with a simple sentence, in the space of 5 seconds, pissed me off. I wasn't just pissed off with him though. I was angrier at myself. Something must have shown on my face, because Warren spoke.

"Rain? You ok?"

"Fine," I said, glaring at him for the second that our eyes met, before turning away.

"You don't have to get all snappy," he said.

"Yeah I do!"

"What the hell is up with you? You were fine a few seconds ago,"

"Well obviously I'm not anymore." I snapped. Warren was getting fired up now.

"So you're taking it out on me?"

"Why not?" I said, standing up_. As opposed to keeping it all in, then taking it out on myself,_ I thought. The marks on my arm reminded me of what that would lead to. Warren stood too, and we each took a step towards each other, neither of us averting our eyes. Suddenly, Warren laughed. I stepped back, confused. Was he laughing at _me_? My anger built up again, and I almost considered slapping him.

"Don't fucking laugh at me," I said slowly, and he stopped. But although the sound of his laughter died, I could see traces of it in his eyes.

"What are you going to do about it?" he said tauntingly. I knew he was only joking around, but it enraged me nonetheless. My skin felt hot and my palms stung as burning blood poured out of my hand.

Warren's hands ignited too.

"If that's the way you want to play it…" he voice was soft and low, not menacing. His eyes had hardened.

A small part of my brain was saying to me '_are you sure you want to do this?'_ Well no, actually it was screaming '_wtf you stupid tramp he's going to fry your ass!'_ But I chose to ignore it.

We moved away from the fire where the others were sleeping, silently sizing each other up. _What the hell am I doing?_ I thought. _No seriously, what the FUCK is wrong with me?_

Warren stood watching me; his hands alight, waiting for me to make the first move. I did so suddenly, and he barely had time to dodge, but as soon as he had recovered, he turned and fired at me, and I tried to leap out of the way, tripping on a raised root and falling flat on my face. At _least I missed the fireball,_ I thought to myself as I stood up, dusting myself off. Expecting more fireballs to follow, none came. I looked around, but Warren was gone. The firelight didn't illuminate much beyond where I was standing, it was all darkness. That was where Warren had gone, into the shadows, waiting for me to come follow him. I was at a disadvantage here. Chances were that Warren could see me, but I couldn't see him. I glanced back towards the campsite where the other had fallen asleep, and in that split second that my back was turned, my arms were pulled behind me by Warren. I struggled but he didn't let go.

"Ok Rain, let's do a little bit of therapy," he said in my ear, as I stopped struggling against his iron grip. Like I said before, he was pretty strong for some-one who doesn't have super strength.

"Get off me," I hissed.

"You started it," he said, his breath on my ear. It sent a shiver down my spine, and I scolded myself. Now was the stupidest time for me to be getting butterflies over close contact with him.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"What do _you_ want?" he replied, confusing me. My confusion, in turn, pissed me off. Again I struggled, but it was futile.

"Warren, let me go!" I almost yelled. "Enough with your fucking games already, we all know you have power over me, now just drop it!" whoa, what the fuck had made that come out of my mouth?

"Games?" Warren echoed in my ear. "So that's what this is about, you think I'm playing games with you?"

"Think? There's no thinking involved Warren," I said scathingly, getting more and more angry the more I became aware of him, how close he was to me… I shook my head to clear it of thoughts that I had been trying to suppress the last few days.

"You think," Warren continued, ignoring me, "that I've been screwing you around. You think that I have nothing better to do than to mess with you? That I get some sort of sadistic pleasure from it?" I knew Warren was angry now, not just annoyed. Actually angry.

"That's not what I meant-"

"That's exactly what you meant." He said it with the kind of total calmness that told me he was barely suppressing his rage. "That I was fucking with you just because I could. It's nice to know you have such a high opinion of me Rain,"

"Since when do you give a shit what people think of you?" I had nothing better to say.

He considered my question for a second, and I took the opportunity to catch him off guard, whipping my arms out of his grip in one quick, fluid movement, turning to face him. I thought I caught a flicker of surprise and something else in his eyes.

"Not what people think of me Rain," he said. "What my _friends_ think of me. I thought that included you."

Unable to come up with a witty reply, I threw a fireball at him. It hit him in the shoulder, but unfortunately his jacket was fireproof. He advanced on me and pushed me roughly against a tree, his face close to mine as he looked straight into my eyes. I was suddenly aware of how close he was to me, and again my heart began to beat faster.

"Rain, I don't know what the fuck is going on with you today," he said, and I could feel his breath on my cheek.

"Nothing's going on with me!" I told him, but began to wonder at my own words. It's true, I never usually allow myself to get worked up by stupid little things.

"Yeah, sure." He replied with blunt sarcasm. "Seriously Rain, what's wrong?"

"Nothing!" I said forcefully, wishing he would move away from me, even a few centimetres. The heat emanating from him was making me feel weird.

"Tell me!" his hand was on my shoulder, one of his fingers just brushing against my neck. The feeling sent a chill down my body.

"Warren…" his name came out as barely a whisper. I didn't understand why; I had meant to yell it.

"Yeah?" he answered softly, lifting his head slightly.

"Don't…" I didn't really know what I was saying, only that I had to make him move away from me. "Just…leave me…"

"Rain…"

"Leave me alone!" I cried out, pushing him away as hard as I could.

His hands were now alight, as were mine, as his black eyes fixed me with a gaze so intense it reminded me of the first time I had spoken with him, during my first week at Sky High. I had looked away then, I didn't now.

Warren, grabbed my arm roughly, and before I could cry out in protest, or throw a fireball at him, his face was coming closer and my heart leapt in my throat as I felt his hot lips on mine. His hand, which a second ago had been gripping my arm tightly, loosened and his other hand rested gently on my waist. A few seconds later, as my brain finally comprehended what was going on and I pushed him away, my lips still burning from the kiss.

_I tried a little romance in this chapter, and I don't think it works. If you like it, comment and tell me and I MIGHT write some more Warren/Rain_

_I really need feedback for this chapter, all comments will be appreciated, and the next chapter isn't going up until I have enough reviews for this. If you think it's crap, TELL ME!_


	12. Heat of a Different Kind

_Oh my god, I'm so sorry it's taken me like a year to update, its just lack of inspiration, stuff happened, computer got wiped clean… but I found the disk id saved my work on, and I felt randomly inspired to continue, so here it is. Once again, I'm SO SO SORRY for making you guys wait, it's not the best chapter ever, but at least I'm writing again, right?_

_Once again, comments, reviews, death-threats etc all appreciated…_

**Chapter 12: Heat of a different kind…**

Whoa. The only thing going through my mind was _holy shit you kissed warren you kissed warren you kissed warren oh my god you kissed warren_ as I shakily stepped away from him.

"Warren…"

Looking at him, I saw that he seemed almost surprised at himself, as if he didn't quite comprehend what had just happened. I realised I was breathing hard, and I was shaking. My heart was like a gymnast on ecstasy and my legs felt weak.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Warren said bluntly, not meeting my eyes.

"Um…" I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. "What does it mean?" I asked a few seconds later. "Are we just going to pretend it never happened?"

"Do you want to?"

I shrugged walking away from him, wondering slowly towards the little wooden pier,

giving myself a few moments to consider. I knew Warren didn't like me, so what the hell would the kiss mean to our relationship? Even though I couldn't have him, I still really valued him as a friend. I didn't want that to get fucked up.

"I guess so…" I stepped onto the pier, and I knew Warren was following.

"So… are you going to tell Layla?"

"I don't know." I stopped, having reached the edge of the pier. The creaking I felt through my feet told me that Warren was right behind me, and I turned to him.

"She'll kill me if she finds out," Warren said, smiling slightly. "She warned me against-"

"I know," I interrupted him. "I was round the corner and I heard."

We stood on the pier silently for almost a minute. After some hesitation, Warren spoke. "Rain… I'm… I'm sorry."

I nodded. "I know."

He stepped towards me but I didn't want him to come any closer, so I stepped back. My mind was still on the kiss and anything he did would just make it worse. When I moved way I saw an expression of hurt flicker across his face. I was on the edge of the pier now, I couldn't move away from him anymore.

"Do you like me Rain?" he asked suddenly, gently placing his hand on my shoulder, and my stomach dropped. Here I was faced with the question I had been avoiding mentally for a while. He held my gaze, searchingly looking into my eyes. My heart once again began doing a series of back flips that penny the cheerleader would be envious of. I knew the answer. I also know if I said it out loud, it would change things for us irreversibly. What I didn't know was whether that change would be good.

"Do you?" his hand slipped slowly off of my shoulder, his fingers trailing down my back before they came to rest on my waist. His other hand came to join it and I was so glad he was holding me up because I really was ready to fall backwards.

"Warren, I don't think…" the words came out of my mouth but I couldn't remember what the rest of the sentence was supposed to be because his eyes were making me forget…

"No, Rain," he interrupted my softly. "Just answer the question" his hands on my hips were firmer now, and he was gently pulling me towards him. I didn't exactly resist.

"Warren…" his name was all I managed this time as he pressed me against him,

"Answer me…"

I tilted my head up and answered by softly pressing my lips against his. I felt his body stiffen in surprise for a second, before he began to kiss me back, the towel draped over his shoulders falling away. His fingers tugged at the towel which I had wrapped around myself like a short strapless dressed, and soon that slid to the ground as well. His kisses moved to my neck, and the warmth of his torso against the exposed parts of my stomach was enough to make me draw breath sharply. By this point my mind had completely switched off and all I knew was that I never wanted him to stop…

"Rain? Warren?"

The sound of Layla's voice made us turn so sharply we both lost our balance and toppled off the edge of the pier. The water around us sizzled for a moment, letting off a puff of steam which quickly dissipated. Although the water wasn't cold, it felt icy compared to how Warren's skin felt against mine a second ago…

I looked up at Layla who was stepping onto the pier, coming towards us. _Oh shit, did she see us? Is she going to tell the others?_ I glanced at Warren, who was looking up at Layla, his expression betraying nothing except possibly slight annoyance at falling into the water.

"You scared the crap out of us Layla," Warren told her as she reached the edge of the pier, where she sat down, swinging her legs over the edge and into the water.

"Sorry," she said smiling. "But what were you guys doing on the edge of the pier anyway?"

"Nothing much," I said nonchalantly, grabbing the edge of the pier and pulling myself towards it.

"Nothing?" she raised her eyebrow. "Guys, there are burn marks in the wood," she gestured behind her. Looking past where she was sitting, I saw that the wooden planks were indeed scorched in two places close together. Where my feet had been and where Warren's feet had been.

"Warren started it," I began, hoping he would catch onto what I was trying to do.

"You threw the first fireball," he retorted, and when I glanced at him, he gave me an almost invisible nod. He knew what cover-up we were going to tell her.

"You asked for it," I replied, smiling slightly.

Layla rolled her eyes. "You guys were fighting? In a forest? Are you stupid?"

"We have good aim," I said defensively.

"Well, I do anyway," Warren added.

You must have gotten pretty into it," Layla said, frowning as she turned to study the scorched planks behind her. "Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten so hot…"

"What?" Warren and I asked simultaneously, managing to keep any emotion out of our voice.

"The water around you boiled when you fell in," she told us. "Your body temperature must have gone way up."

"Oh, right," was my reply. As my mind wandered to the events just prior to Layla's interruption, I shook my head. I needed to keep those thoughts away.

"So what woke you up?" I asked Layla, who shrugged. "Will elbowed my in the head," she laughed. "So I got up, and I thought I saw you two on the pier… were you two planning to go into the water? Because you're towels…" she gestured behind her, to where both of our towels lay in a heap where they had fallen. My stomach muscles tightened as I tried desperately to come up with a good reason for them. Layla was hardly going to believe the excuse _I got warm_, was she?

"Erm... well, I was trying to beat him with my towel," I began, hoping she hadn't noticed my hesitation, "but it's kind of light, so it didn't do much damage."

Layla seemed satisfied. I turned to warren to see if he appreciated my save (which was pretty good, even if I do say so myself) but he was floating on his back a distance away, totally oblivious to how our asses nearly got busted.

"Layla?" Will's voice came from behind the bonfire. He stepped around and it and soon came into view as he approached us. "You ok?" he nodded at us both, and then gracelessly plonked himself on the pier next to Layla.

"What are all these burns on the wood?" he asked interestedly, stretching his arms above his head.

"Rain and Warren got a bit carried away," Layla told him, and his head snapped round, a look of disbelief on his face.

"You mean you guys had-"

"Not like that!" Layla and I said in unison, and Will nodded, although he still looked unconvinced. I splashed him as hard as I could.

"You've got such a dirty mind!"

He shrugged defensively. "I'm a guy, what do you expect?!?!"

Layla laughed and draped her arm around him lovingly. He responded by planting a few little kisses on her shoulder, and she blushed slightly.

"We should probably go," he said, checking his watch. "It's almost 11, and they normally come and check that everyone's turned their lights out."

"Let's wake the others," Layla stood up, her wet feet leaving faint footprints on the wood as she walked off the pier.

I pulled myself out of the water, picking my towel off of the ground. It was extremely warm. Almost hot. Wrapping it around me I leant down to pick Warren's towel up as well; it was warmer than mine. I turned to hand it to him and took a step back because he was right behind me. I handed him the towel silently and he received it with a mischievous grin. I couldn't help but grin back.

Turning to follow Layla and the others, I was almost surprised at how I was handling this. I did feel confused by what had happened, and I didn't know what was going to happen next, but for some reason I wasn't having a total spaz attack about it. Warren was right, this wasn't a game. But sometimes, certain things can be made simpler f you treat it like one…

_Please review… I know it wasn't worth the wait, but I hope you guys liked it anyway lol_


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